"Mike Russell" wrote in message
"John" wrote in message
[re Camera Raw / Raw Shooter conversions]
This shot was an ‘against the light’ shot with clipped highlights. It is the
most extreme example I have because the colours in the scene are almost monochromatic. I have converted the images with both ACR and RSE. I include
one version without any exposure compensation (i.e. as-shot) and one
with.
All other settings are ‘as-shot’ settings, i.e. no contrast, brightness, white balance adjustments or sharpening .
With color temp as set in camera.
Yes, I just leave it set to ‘auto’ in the camera because I expect to set it more accurately when I do the conversion.
Here is the worst example:
‘As shot’ using ACR:
http://www.todnet.demon.co.uk/samples/ACR_CRW_0822as_shot.jp g
Now with ACR and some exposure compensation to rescue the blown highlights:
http://www.todnet.demon.co.uk/samples/ACR_CRW_0822exp_comp.j pg
Here is a full res crop of a section of the image (with exposure compensation):
http://www.todnet.demon.co.uk/samples/ACR_CRW_0822exp_comp_c rop.jpg
I see what you mean. One thing you don’t mention, that I find even more glaring than the general color shift, is the fact that the sky is green in the center and magenta on the left and right. This is probably impossible to correct in curves without a mask, which I find unacceptable.
Yes, you’re right. It was certainly beyond my skills to correct it!. I did manage a significant improvement, but it does seem unnecessarily hard work if there are other raw converters with keep the colour balance more neutral.
Aside from this, for your two examples, ACR starts with a generally colder interpretation of the image, with greens somewhat dominant. On top of
this,
ACR adds more saturation to the image than RSE does when adjusting the exposure down. Both of these can be controlled using the calibration setting of ACR, but I understand your point that if RSE does not add the green cast, neither should ACR.
My initial worry here was why is there a difference. After all, there are many people singing the praises of ACR, so I was quite surprised when I first opened Adobe Bridge – these particular files were amongst the first I saw and the colours are even scarier at thumbnail size 🙂 I wondered if there was a trade off – maybe ACR extracts more ‘lost’ information than RSE: it is usually the case that the more sensitive instrument is the most susceptible to noise. However, if there is any detriment to RSE, it is very subtle. The only slight difference I can see, is that if you zoom the full res crops to 300%, the ACR version looks ever so slightly smoother, as though the RSE version has been very slightly sharpened. Yet I had sharpening disabled in both convesions for all my samples.
My general feeling is that, under strange lighting conditions, there will tend to be strange colors. Is it unacceptable to you to use curves, or
some
other tool, to set a point to neutral? This has the advantage that it works, and also gives you chances to improve the image using whatever
amount
of artistic license you think is proper. BTW- I tried this with the RSW
and
ACR images, and the RSW image was much easier to correct because the magenta/green gradient is absent from the sky. This constitutes a serious defect in ACR, IMHO.
The lighting was certainly strange, although not necessarily unusual here in Scotland! I have no problem with making adjustments/corrections using curves etc. where necessary, although that said, the less I have to do, the happier I am. I’d prefer the raw converter to sort out the fundamentals and leave the curves for the more artistic stuff as you suggest above. However, it’s not an ideal world but on the face of it, RSE seems to be closer to the ideal at the moment, at least with these more awkward images. I really need to notch up some more experience with RSE from a workflow/usability aspect – it seems to be highly rated in this forum.
That’s progress! But there are other ways to get your web page. Check
out
free web hosting. If you don’t mind ads they do the job. Or you may find
a
way to keep your server on a home machine, using one of the free dynamic
dns
services. But I recommend spending 8 dollars a year for your own domain name, and use of a service such as zoneedit.com to keep your name pointing the dynamic ip address to your home machine.
—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
Thanks for the tips – I’ll look into those options. I must admit, I was taken by surprise. I think there are beter ISPs but I thought it would be better to stay with Demon to avoid the hassle of changing email addresses. I guess we all make mistakes!
Thanks very much for your comments and advice – much appreciated.
—
John
Replace ‘nospam’ with ‘todnet’ when replying.